


muggles think love is magic

by eleven_twelve



Category: The Boyz (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, M/M, guess what jaehyun is..., mentions of weed, muggle, pureblood kevin is obsessed with muggles for some reason, very babie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:09:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21563524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleven_twelve/pseuds/eleven_twelve
Summary: Kevin stares at the closed doors in wonder, the smile Jaehyun flashed him right before he turned away from the window burned into his retinas like it was magic. How ironic.or: Kevin falls in love with muggles. Jaehyun happens to be one.
Relationships: Lee Jaehyun | Hyunjae/Moon Hyungseo | Kevin
Comments: 11
Kudos: 125





	muggles think love is magic

It’s early in the summer when Kevin Moon decides to run away. It’s a rash decision, the by-product of an unbalanced reaction, one part unsatisfactory living situation, two parts early onset puberty. Chemistry in its purest form, or at least so Kevin thinks. His father is a Potioneer after all, it can’t be all that different. 

At age eleven, round-cheeked and rather short, magic sitting in the tips of his fingers like flower buds on the verge of blossoming, Kevin doesn’t think about consequences. He tightens the straps of his backpack around his shoulders and crosses the threshold of the Moon household with fiery determination. His mother would’ve been proud of him for being goal-oriented, had she not read the note he left on the kitchen table in the neatest handwriting he could muster. 

_Dear mom and dad, I’m running away to become a muggle. Don’t come look for me. I took 20 Galleons from the saving pig. I’m sorry. I love you. Kevin_

What Kevin apparently also doesn’t think about is the following. One, muggles do not accept Galleons, which leaves Kevin stranded on the damp concrete steps of a convenience store, banana milk and gummy bears forgotten on the counter, with a growling stomach and a dire need for a change of plans. Two, muggle convenience stores don’t sell Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans. Three, Choi Chanhee’s house, on the outskirts of town, one unpaid fare bus ride away, is not a strategical refuge. 

Chanhee’s sister opens the door, white pigtails swaying slightly when she turns into the house and yells for Chanhee to come down. He appears at the bottom of the stairs a whole two minutes later, long-legged and beautiful, a quarter Veela in all his glory, and hugs Kevin tightly. 

They’ve been best friends for the better part of their eleven years, their mothers colleagues at the Ministry Department of International Magical Cooperation. He moved down from Seoul a good seven years ago, about two months after Kevin came from Vancouver. 

He eats dinner with the Choi family and watches as the rain ticks against the windows, so far his sleeping-in-the-park plan. He could ask Chanhee’s sister for a dry-keeping charm, but it’s in Kevin’s best interest not to reveal his plan to the pure-blood Slytherin family. They might call his father to stir him up a quick potion because he’s apparently gone absolutely batshit. A muggle? Who would want to be a muggle? 

Later that night, during a very intense game of Wizarding Chess that Kevin was most definitely winning, his mother shows up at the door regardless. And that was the end of it. A compromise to take Kevin to see the Lion King at West End and allow him a muggle toy for his birthday, in exchange for him completing his magic studies. It seems like a fair deal to eleven-year-old Kevin, who never thinks about consequences. 

\- 

Kevin calls the Ravenclaw common room one home of many. He’s always easily fit in, shifting himself to the needs and wants of other people, his own desires overshadowed by laughter and material rewards. Instant gratification. Kevin’s a sucker for that one. His house-mate Juyeon jokingly calls him a metamorphmagus. When he tries dyeing his hair cobalt blue in the second year, after Ravenclaw wins the house cup, he almost looks like one too. 

He’s got friends in all the houses, and they each see different sides of him. With Chanhee he’s the oldest version of himself, the one that’s been in him since Vancouver, their friendship comes easy, like settling into a soft couch, but the Slytherin common room couches are leather and sturdy, and there’s things Kevin doesn’t tell. Jacob knows his dreams, the flow of his words like early spring rain, his smiles yellow like the sun when they are together. They listen to muggle music and play wizard instruments, and in their fingers lives a different kind of magic. Then there’s Changmin, on the shy side for a Gryffindor, but when he opens himself up, it’s like he was once torn away from Kevin but the rip never quite healed. They fit into each other perfectly, it’s not easy to describe, but Changmin knows Kevin better than he knows himself. 

They are well-known group amongst professors, academically outstanding due to Kevin’s diligence and Chanhee’s natural intelligence, and their WhizNet group chat, that consists of muggle memes (much to Chanhee’s dismay) and a bunch of shared homework. 

They get into their fair share of trouble, but not that they’re known for it, unlike that one group of Gryffindors in their year, that sneak off to Zonko’s every Thursday, and set fire to the Divination professor’s hair after a prank containing one too many pepper imps goes amiss. 

The four of them end up walking to their Advanced Potions class (courtesy of Kevin and only a little bit more of his father’s help than a Ravenclaw is willing to admit), their hair still smelling like smoke. 

“I swear I’m gonna kill Jaehyun one day,” Chanhee complains, straightening out his robes that got messed up in the panic that arose out of seeing their professor ablaze. “I’ll Avada Kedavra him, and gladly spend the rest of my days in Azkaban.” 

Jacob laughs and uses his wand to get little particles of ash out of Chanhee’s white hair. 

“That’s what you get for always sitting in the front row, you teacher’s pet,” he says, and laughs when Chanhee glares. 

“Not nice, Hufflepuff.” 

“How do they even get to Zonko’s before the weekend?” Changmin pipes up. Even as fifth years they are only allowed off of school grounds on the weekends. “There's a rumour that goes around saying that Sangyeon Lee apparated in his sixth year to go clubbing in London, and he got sent to Azkaban for three years.” 

“Nah, that’s not true,” Jacob confirms. “I talked to him the other week on WandCall. He’s never set foot in Azkaban, I can tell you that.” 

Kevin laughs at how relieved Changmin looks. 

Chanhee grumbles something under his breath, still busy trying to charm the smoke smell out of them. His preferred scent is an expensive muggle brand cologne Kevin can never remember the name of, but he settles for lavender instead. 

“Come again?” 

“I hate to admit it, but Jaehyun’s got some serious magic skills up his sleeve, getting to Zonko’s without getting caught like that.” Chanhee says, stuffing his wand back into his pocket. “Especially for a muggle-born.” 

“He’s muggle-born?” Kevin asks, pulled back into the conversation by the sheer impact the word has on him. It's almost embarrassing, and Kevin knows it, if the reddening of his cheeks is anything to go by. 

His original obsession with muggles and their lives had subsided over the years at Hogwarts, but it never completely went away. There’s still a small, round-cheeked, eleven-year-old Kevin inside of him, exuberantly dancing through the streets of London after seeing his favourite musical, begging his parents to take the tube home instead of apparating. To this day he prefers pens over quills, and has a Beyoncé poster tacked onto the wall above his bed. 

Their year at Hogwarts has only a few muggle borns, all but one sorted into Gryffindor. Changmin shares a room with most of them, telling Kevin about the games they play or the stories they tell from home. He likes hearing them talk about their homes, how warm they are, nothing like the objective theory of muggle studies, or the make-believe lives he watches on muggle reality tv sometimes. 

“Did you not know?” 

He’s talked to Jaehyun Lee before. Gryffindor Quidditch Captain, could’ve been prefect if not for his stupid pranks, gets fairly average grades but takes the crown in Charms. He’s celebrated amongst muggle-borns for his WiFi-at-Hogwarts petition a couple of years ago. It happened, but the laws of muggle science get bent just slightly under the influence of magic. It was a great initiative nonetheless, and Kevin signed it because he wanted to see what the Internet was about, and definitely not because he liked the way Jaehyun’s eyes twinkle when he smiles. 

The thing is, people either want him or want to be him. Kevin’s heard stories about broom closets and the greenhouses, even the Room of Requirement for Merlin’s sake, how did he find it? Therefore, he comes to the conclusion that a, now a little above average height, still round-cheeked, masters magic but has a strange interest in muggle culture, sixteen-year-old Kevin, does not stand a chance. He's okay with it, even if he sometimes gives up his front-row seat so he can ogle Jaehyun from the back of the class (Changmin’s words, of course he would know). 

“I thought he was half, like Jacob,” he shrugs. 

And that’s that. The conversation turns to the O.W.L. exams that all their professors keep bringing up even though it’s only October, and the sun that Chanhee found in Kevin’s tealeaves during Tessomancy class, when all Kevin saw was a formless black goo. There’s good fortune on your path, it means. Kevin doesn’t quite believe it. But if good fortune comes in the shape of a rowdy boy with stories of another world, then Kevin will take what he gets. 

\- 

Chanhee turns out to be right after all. Good fortune it is. Or, at least, if what Kevin wants is what Kevin gets, then he’ll start paying better attention in Divination from now on. 

The group of fifth years crosses the Ravenclaw common room on a clear Wednesday night. When the doors to the Astronomy tower swing open the cold hits Kevin like a bludger. The air smells crisp, like Kevin could breathe it in and have it crunch up his lungs in the process. Winter is at its cusp. 

“Jaehyun close the door behind you, will you!” The Astrology professor yells. Jaehyun does as he’s told and silence returns to the studying Ravenclaws once more. Kevin stares at the closed doors in wonder, the smile Jaehyun flashed him right before he turned away from the window burned into his retinas like it was magic. How ironic. 

“Don’t you have work to do?” Sunwoo waves a confused hand in front of Kevin’s face, nimble fingers for a boy part centaur. 

Kevin went away for the weekend to celebrate the muggle Harvest Festival with Jacob’s family, his homework for once forgotten under the piles of honey-filled rice cakes Jacob’s grandmother brought. The downside of this is the pile of parchment that lies spread across the table between them. 

He begrudgingly tears his gaze away from the door, of which the windows have turned opaque again. A No Distractions charm by the Head Girl who takes grades incredibly seriously. Like she isn’t busy drooling after the quidditch captain. Then again, so is Kevin. 

“You’re one to talk,” Kevin retorts, gesturing to the small notebook Sunwoo is scrawling in. Poetry, or something. Sunwoo won’t let anyone read it. 

Sunwoo throws him the finger, something he learned from his muggle-born Gryffindor (of course he is) friend Eric. Kevin smiles back at him, the closest to a little brother he’s ever going to get, and ruffles his hair. 

“Not nice, Sunnie,” 

“I’m not a Hufflepuff, now am I? “He says, trying to flatten his messy hair as much as it will allow him. It’s the horse genes, he jokes sometimes, you could make violin bow strings out of it. 

Soon, Sunwoo starts scribbling away in his notebook again, the broken tip of his quill leaking ink across half the page. Kevin hands him a ballpoint pen and sighs and looks back at where the Astrology class had been. Jaehyun’s twinkling eyes. 

It’s inviting, staring at the dark blue door, the bronze constellations on the ceiling, a slight flickering in Virgo, the heads of concentrated Ravenclaw students hunched over their homework. Much more so than the three scrolls of parchment that lie in front of him on the table, empty of his assignments on the Benefits of Muggle-Wizard Cooperation, Centaur History and The Secret Lives of Muggle Teens. He thinks about Jaehyun’s broom closet adventures and then he thinks about consequences. He’s got standards to live up to after all. 

Kevin goes to work and the common room runs empty. 

\- 

“Is that the song from Up?” 

Kevin stops playing the piano and whips his head around so fast he feels a cramp creeping up the side of his neck. There Jaehyun stands, in all his six feet, just turned seventeen, glory, dragging a bony finger across the top of the buffet piano that the Head of Ravenclaw house found in a desolate muggle bar. Kevin is the only one who knows how to play. 

“Have you lost your tongue?” 

Kevin blushes, he can tell by the way his temples start throbbing in time with the ticking of the large clock above the fireplace. He focusses on the little mole on Jaehyun’s nose and nods, at least fifteen seconds too late. Jaehyun smiles nonetheless. 

“Yes to the song, or to the tongue thing?” 

“The song.” 

“Obviously. I was just teasing you.” 

It feels like a deviation from the familiar, an aberration in the system, to see Jaehyun standing in the middle of the Ravenclaw common room, Astrology book clutched under his arm, a scarlet hoodie, golden letters, no uniform even though the rules clearly state that robes are required during every partaking in academic activities. Bright red socks on the cornflower carpet. 

There’s something akin to confusion on his face, lips slightly pursed. “Aren’t you pure-blood?” He asks, and Kevin knows that he knows but he nods to confirm it anyways. 

“Yes, but I really like muggle movies.” 

“Oh. Have you seen the Marvel movies? Iron man is my favourite.” 

Their conversation takes off with surprising ease. Kevin learns about superhero conventions, social democracy and vacuums all in the time-span of thirty minutes. There’s something magical about the way Jaehyun talks about home, smoke curling out of his ears after eating the last of his pepper imps. Kevin asks all he's ever wanted to know. The world almost starts to feel like it was built just so Jaehyun could explain it to him. 

The stars on the ceiling are twinkling above their heads. Jaehyun makes Kevin’s head spin in a way not unlike apparition does. In this case, he’ll gladly take the vertigo. 

“Shit, I have to go,” Jaehyun says eventually, when the digital watch around his wrist beeps twice at midnight, and the lions that he conjured up in the flames of the fire are slowly fizzling out. “I’ll see you in Charms tomorrow.” 

They part ways at the door, after another fifteen minutes spent pulling on shoes and laughing at stupid muggle jokes. Jaehyun stands in the doorway and squeezes Kevin’s hand for a second too long. 

“See you,” he says. 

“Try to avoid the janitor.” 

Jaehyun smiles and takes a step back, salutes him. Kevin laughs and pushes him even further out the door. 

“Student out of bed!” Kevin shouts, when all that’s left is the echo of Jaehyun’s footsteps against the cold stone floors, the stairs creaking as they move to accommodate him. His answer comes in the dark, loud laughter and the ghost of Jaehyun’s hand in his. 

\- 

Kevin walks on sunshine for all but three days. Literally. Chanhee hexes him after Kevin drinks the rest of his pumpkin juice. Now Kevin has feet that leave a lit-up trail everywhere he goes, and Chanhee has greasy skin. It’s only fair. 

The four of them sit at the Gryffindor table at breakfast every Sunday morning. Their owls are so used to it that they take turns bringing the post. Kevin looks around for Jaehyun but doesn’t spot him. He won’t admit to the slight disappointment that runs down his spine. It’s just cold. Kevin needs a new jacket. 

Next to him sits Chanhee, furiously going through a book on forbidden spells to find anything that will get rid of the pimple that sits right between his eyebrows. In reality it isn’t noticeable at all but Kevin can only take so many _I’m hideous, guys_ from the objectively most beautiful person he’s ever laid his eyes on before it starts to impact his own self-confidence for the worse. 

“Chanhee, stop,” Jacob says, which earns him a glare and a croissant stuffed into his mouth in favour of him shutting up. 

Kevin sighs and sips his coffee. When he looks up, Jaehyun is smiling at him from across the Hall, sitting at the Ravenclaw table with Sunwoo, of all people. It’s a small world. Kevin smiles back. 

He vaguely remembers Jaehyun mentioning how he spends every Sunday afternoon in Hogsmeade, asking Zonko for new prank materials, drinking double shot butterbeer, strolling through the cobblestone streets because “if you squint just right, it almost looks like home.” Although it is cold, and the grey clouds that hang low between the hills predict nothing but rainstorms and soaked shoes, Kevin decides to pay Hogsmeade a visit. Dry feet be damned. 

“Anyone want to join me in the Three Broomsticks later?” 

Changmin slurps the last bit of milk out of his bowl of Pixie Puffs and shakes his head. “Sorry, Kev. Jacob and I have a project for Herbology.” 

“If this project is you two smoking weed without me again, I’m blocking you on WhizNet.” 

Jacob snorts into his tea and Changmin looks only slightly guilty. Here's to friendship. 

“Whatever, I’ll just go by myself then.” 

It starts to rain. 

\- 

He’s standing in front of the window at Scrivencraft’s Quill shop, admiring the new set of paint brushes when he feels two fingers poking at his sides. Kevin doesn’t know why his first instinct is to draw his wand, but it’s what he does, the oakwood tip pointed right below Jaehyun’s left ear, brown hair curling at the ends. 

“You scared me.” 

Jaehyun laughs and puts his hands up in defence. His cheeks are bright red from the cold. “Clearly,” he says, and his voice turns into a cloud when it hits the air. It reminds Kevin somewhat of a patronus, if the hare without hind legs coming out of the tip of his wand for about two seconds before going up into a blue tinged smoke is anything to go by. 

“How did you know I was here?” 

Jaehyun laughs into his scarlet scarf, eyes like the moon and the sun at the same time, and points at Kevin’s feet, one bright pink and the other a glittering gold, and the colourful trail that meanders through the cobblestone street. 

“Right,” Kevin sighs. “Remind me to kill Chanhee when I get back.” 

“Well, if it’s of any consolation, he led me right to you.” 

A consolation it is. A shudder runs down Kevin’s spine like he just got jinxed. He looks up from his horrendously kitschy coloured feet and to the gloomy skies above and simultaneously curses and blesses Chanhee’s existence. The pit of his stomach feels warm but he also really _really_ needs that new jacket. 

“Merlin, I’m freezing. Do you wanna go get a Butterbeer or something?” 

Jaehyun nods and wraps his scarf tightly around Kevin, the tips of his fingers glowing like matchsticks each time they brush against his neck. Kevin should probably protest because he can and will not be seen wearing a Gryffindor’s scarf, much less that of the rival quidditch captain. Unfortunately for Kevin’s pride however, Jaehyun’s scarf smells like washing powder and the coffee he had for breakfast, and the rain has been crumbling the foundations of his self-control for days now, so he ends up tucking the ends of the scarf into his hoodie and ignores Jaehyun’s gloating. 

\- 

The pub at the corner of town smells like smoke and peppermint tea. The old lady behind the counter grins teeth of gold when they sit down by the window. The candle that sits in the middle of the table bows politely to each of them before igniting itself, its flame warm enough to melt their frozen noses. 

Jaehyun pulls his grey sleeve over his hand and wipes at the fogged-up glass, the fabric going dark. Drops of water pool onto the wooden windowsill below, dead bottleneck flies and a wilting sansevieria. Kevin smiles. 

“Are you coming to the game next Tuesday?” 

Kevin has a tendency to skip quidditch games in favour of breaking into the music room on the fourth floor with Sunwoo and Jacob, who taught him the art of lock-picking when Alohomora started failing them after weeks of nightly jam-sessions. However, the Ravenclaw-Gryffindor match is always one looked forward towards, Chanhee chattering endlessly about Gryffindor’s new tall seeker, Changmin a loyal house-fanatic, and Jacob with a new-found interest for professional high-level quidditch. Kevin will be dragged along regardless. 

“I think so,” he replies and leans into his elbows across the table, a wand’s length separating their noses. “I’ll cheer for you if you want. Don't tell Juyeon I said that, though.” 

Jaehyun laughs and bows his head slightly when the old lady puts their damping Butterbeers in front of them, ginger and cinnamon. Amongst the greys and browns the blush that dusts his cheeks cuts like fire in the dark. Kevin hopes Rowena Ravenclaw doesn’t curse him from beyond the grave when he prays for Gryffindor’s victory. 

\- 

The evening sits like gold on the edge of the hills. The afternoon is pale blue, clear, and cold. Everything else is red, noses and cheeks and fingertips, the churning crowd Kevin is amidst. The players on the field are only trackable by the clouds of white they leave behind, both red and blue blending in to the moorland and the sky. 

The game is in full swing, Gryffindor in the lead by just ten points, the crowds on both sides of the field trying to outsing each other. 

Chanhee offers him a handful of roasted mini dragon eggs and Changmin is trying to finger-paint a lion on his left cheek. Kevin can almost see Juyeon and Sunwoo glaring at him from the opposite side of the stands. He’s already mentally preparing for a week’s worth of ranting about loyalty and kinship and collective identity. Sunwoo likes to call him a house traitor, as if he once didn’t lose Ravenclaw forty points for his Fire Whiskey incident. Hypocrite. 

The crowd falters when Ravenclaw scores a double goal, heads hanging collectively like the house is one large moving beast. There’s an air of hope in the jingle that has been playing on loop for the better part of an hour but Kevin is sure he’s bound to lose his mind if he hears it one more time. 

“This is so boring,” Chanhee pouts, when the Gryffindor seeker has disappeared from the field to chase the snitch. Jacob laughs and shushes him at the same time. 

“It is when you’re here just to drool over Younghoon.” 

“Whatever. I’m going down for some juice.” He pulls at Kevin’s wrist. “You coming?” 

Part of Kevin doesn’t want to leave the stands. He’s made up some cheesy, muggle rom-com situation in his mind of Jaehyun scoring the winning goal and flying up to the stands to kiss Kevin as a thank you for cheering for him. It’s incredibly embarrassing, and definitely not up to the standards Kevin likes to pretend he has, but one can dream. On the other hand, Kevin does not care much for quidditch, or any sport really, and in the dying light Jaehyun is about as easy to spot as a Cornish pixie on the run. 

House traitor or not, he’s hungry and bored, and he can wait for Jaehyun to kiss him another day. 

They’re almost half-way the creaky wooden stairs when the crowd starts screaming above them and then goes uncharacteristically quiet, especially for Gryffindors with access to Butterbeer. 

“Now what’s going on?” Chanhee turns to him from the landing below, his expression one of boredom, but Kevin doesn’t miss the hint of worry in his voice. 

When they reach the top of the stairs, everyone is hanging over the edge of the stands, looking at something that is happening down on the field. The sun has sunk into the mountains, the lake a black hole where it was glittering gold just minutes before. The crowd is shrouded in obscurity. 

“What happened?” Kevin asks Changmin, the red and yellow paint in streaks on his face. He looks to Jacob with nervous eyes. Tension sits huddled in between them before the murmuring around them breaks it. 

“Uh-” 

If something bad has happened, Changmin won’t tell him. He’s too careful with hearts. Kevin turns to Jacob instead. 

“Jaehyun fell,” he says. “Well, he was pushed by that one Ravenclaw beater, the one who looks like a rat, you know him.” 

“I’ll kill him,” Kevin says, and he almost feels like he means it. 

“Kevin, it’s part of the game.” 

“Yeah, I know, but I’ll kill him.” 

Jacob takes his hand and drags him to the edge where they can see the entire field. A Lumos enchantment sits in the middle of a circle of teachers, next to it Jaehyun, lying on the yellowing grass below, unmoving, left arm in an angle that it most definitely shouldn’t be in. 

They carry him away on a stretcher. Kevin’s only ever seen it happening in movies. Jacob rests a gentle hand on his shoulder, a comfort that does near to nothing to take away from the heaviness that sits in his stomach. 

“He’ll be fine,” Chanhee says. The crowd around them thins out, the match cancelled and postponed. Kevin nods and looks back to where Jaehyun was. Maybe he was cursed after all. 

\- 

The hospital wing is lighter than any other part of the castle, large stained glass windows and limestone walls, like the sun is trying to heal the sick. Jaehyun is the only one there. 

Kevin threads in on socked feet, bright blue against the cold tiles. Jaehyun’s bed stands in a patch of sunlight, he lies curled up like a cat in his white sheets, head bound with herbal dressing, left arm in a sling. He wakes up when Kevin touches the cool metal of his bedframe. 

“How are you feeling?” 

Jaehyun smiles, his hair shimmering like rust in the sun. 

“Better, now that you’re here.” 

Kevin snorts and hits Jaehyun’s blanket-covered foot. Maybe he wasn’t wrong to assume a rom-com type of situation. Kevin knows Jaehyun watches dramas, it’s all he talks about sometimes. 

“But seriously, I’m fine. My wrist is broken and I probably have a concussion, so this bright room isn’t great, but Pomfrey didn’t want to hear about it.” 

“That’s good.” 

Kevin sits down on the bed and puts the cup ramen he brought as a gift on the nightstand. Besides his parents, it’s what Jaehyun misses of home the most. (“Why don’t wizards have _normal_ things here? Can’t they do anything without magic?”) Kevin knows there is no microwave, but a hot air charm might just do the trick. 

There’s a lot of get well soon cards on the nightstand, one of them unmoving. Kevin takes it and studies the banana on the front, the _Peel better soon!_ In pale blue font. He laughs and Jaehyun shakes his head in embarrassment and fondness all at once. 

“It’s from my parents. After all these years they’re still not used to Hoot flying onto the kitchen table every morning.” A smile sits at the corners of his lips. 

“They must’ve been shocked at the letter they got this morning, their dear son falling of a broom during a magical game. A broken wrist and a head injury. We all know McGonagall isn’t the best at consoling muggles.” 

“Even my mom would freak out,” Kevin says. “Although, more at the notion of me actually playing quidditch than falling.” 

They laugh so loudly that Madame Pomfrey barges in with a platter full of a goopy brown syrup to shush them. Jaehyun pulls a face at her when she turns around and Kevin cups a hand in front of his mouth and breathes loudly through his nose. Maybe she should examine the workings of his heart, considering its consistent irregularities as of late. 

“I should get going then,” Kevin pipes up after a while, the shadows shifting steadily on the floor around them, a stray finger on Jaehyun’s unwrapped wrist. “I’ve got DADA. Don’t wanna be late.” 

He suddenly remembers the flowers he brought, thirteen pale pink primroses, each with a bright yellow centre, carefully plucked from the flower greenhouse, already wilting at the tips. He puts them in a jar of water he finds on an empty nightstand. 

“Did you know,” Jaehyun says then, when Kevin is already halfway out the door, his voice a hollow echo in the large room, “that muggles give meanings to flowers? Primroses are often connected to young love. You probably didn’t know.” 

Kevin looks at him for a long time, the way the bridge of his nose colours red, the sun in his eyelashes. He knows. 

\- 

Kevin goes home for the Christmas Holidays and misses Jaehyun endlessly. He sits on the coarse rug in front of the fireplace at Chanhee’s house and watches his sister conjure up the nativity scene in the flames. The lights in the tree flicker silver and gold, silver and gold, and Kevin can’t stop thinking of Jaehyun’s eyes. 

“Stop staring dramatically out the window. You’re not in a movie,” Chanhee lightly smacks the back of his head with the ancient spell book he got for Christmas. Kevin snorts. 

“You’re one to talk.” 

Chanhee and his sister drag him out to go ice skating on the frozen pond out by the forest. The scarf that wraps around Kevin’s neck is scarlet and yellow, still smelling vaguely of washing powder. The adults at the table send him quizzical looks, but don’t comment. Kevin has always felt at home in many places. 

Two days after Christmas, the windows frosty and the sun golden on the fresh snow, an owl comes flying over the kitchen table and drops a small package right onto Kevin’s not quite yet finished plate of the French toast he spent half an hour making. 

Kevin immediately recognises Jaehyun’s owl, the brown wingtips and cross-eyed yellow gaze. A set of brand-new paintbrushes and a deck of muggle playing cards, a packet of extra-sour gummy worms. _Happy Midwinter to my favourite muggle,_ the card on the front reads, an unmoving picture of a Christmas tree, ballpoint pen scribbles. Kevin smiles. 

“Thanks Hoot,” he says, scratching the owl’s white head gently. 

Later, he sends Hoot on her way with a book on Wizard Culture, a packet of pepper imps and a small stuffed Iron Man doll, enchanted to sing Jingle Bells every so often just to annoy Jaehyun. He attaches a little flashing bike-lamp to Hoot’s leg and wishes her a safe trip. 

\- 

In the middle of a blizzard, they meet at King’s Cross station, the weather uncharacteristic for London. Jaehyun’s hair hangs in damp waves across his forehead, red and yellow hat, dark blue scarf. Kevin gets pulled into a bone-crushing hug, warm and cold at once. 

“Nice weather, huh?” he says. 

“It’s global warming,” Jaehyun replies matter-of-factly, as if Kevin has any idea what he’s talking about. And then, “I’ve missed you.” 

When Kevin replies, “I missed you too,” it is the understatement of the century. 

\- 

There’s a game the two of them play, on quiet Sunday mornings before Kevin is inevitably whisked away by Jacob for their weekly communal breakfast, hushed Wednesday nights in the Ravenclaw common room after Astronomy class, lazy Saturdays on the edge of the lake, glittering in the afternoon sun. Jaehyun will tell him a story about muggles and Kevin has to guess whether he’s telling the truth or not. He’s gotten quite good at figuring out muggle traditions. That and the way Jaehyun bites the inside of his cheeks when he’s lying. 

(“Muggles think the Earth is a flat plain.” “Muggles have special doctors for when they want to change their faces.” “Muggles eat snails.” “Muggles hang unmoving paintings on the walls of large buildings and walk around to look at them, just because it makes them feel something.”) 

Kevin wants to go to an art museum, a build-a-bear store, a high school football game. “I’ll take you,” Jaehyun says with a laugh but Kevin knows he means it. It’s in the gentle tilt of his head, the glinting of his eyes. Kevin will go anywhere with him. 

The sun hangs low over the hills, the sky a brilliant blue, the lake its reflection. Jaehyun holds onto Kevin’s hand and tells him about the origin of the Milky Way, the paintings he saw in the MET when his parents took him to New York last winter, the new Avengers movie he can’t wait to pirate when he finally gets a proper internet connection. 

“I’ve got one,” Kevin pipes up and Jaehyun stares at him with his dark brown eyes and the world stops for a single second, Petrificus Totalus unsaid on his lips. Kevin is in love with him. 

“Muggles think love is a chemical reaction.” 

Jaehyun laughs and shakes his head, brown hair fluttering in the icy wind, eyes crescents of the moon, bright like the sun, his lips as red as his fingertips. 

Kevin is at just shy of seventeen, taller than his friends, round-cheeked, an above-average wizard for his age, fairly certain that thinking of consequences brings him nowhere. So, he thinks of nothing at all when he pulls Jaehyun in by his own blue scarf and kisses him until they both can no longer breathe. 

“You were wrong,” Jaehyun says later, frost on the grass, the moon a pale white sliver in the night sky. He untangles and retangles their fingers in the pocket of his jacket, rubbing his thumb across Kevin’s knuckles in the process, the mountains and the lake. He kisses Kevin again. 

“Muggles think love is magic.” 

**Author's Note:**

> hello, heres a harry potter au because i binged all the movies on netflix with the account i dont pay for because fawk capitalism right. anyway this pairing again bc theyre my babies thats all.
> 
> ps: kevin is a ravenclaw and thts on periodd
> 
> please leave a comment if you liked it mwahhh <3333


End file.
